Efforts to gauge and improve the effectiveness of communication activities, such as advertising activities, have long relied on gathering data from audience survey participants. Traditionally, such data gathering has involved the manual recording of media content consumption patterns by survey participants in participant diaries. Audience surveys have been conducted by providing selected and consenting members with record diaries and requiring that the audience members record their media consumption periodically over a particular time span. Unfortunately, survey participants often prove unreliable in their ability to maintain complete and accurate records of their media consumption activities. Record diaries may be forgotten or lost and, even when remembered, the significant discipline required to maintain accurate written records on a regular basis may be lacking. The metric of survey participant adherence to the data collection protocol of a survey is termed “compliance.”
More recently, the development of miniaturized electronic technologies has permitted the automation of some data collection functions useful in the study of audience media consumption. Compliance is generally improved by such automation of data collection. The most sophisticated automated systems, however, still require positive action by survey participants to enable full compliance with survey protocols. In particular, existing data sensing and collection devices require periodic battery charging, data transfer connection and, most fundamentally, require that the survey participant carry the data sensing a collection device on his or her person. In practice, compliance is therefore limited by the willingness or capacity of the survey participant to properly remember and employ a Monitoring device.
Consequently, despite various advances, effectively capturing complete and accurate information regarding audience media consumption remains difficult. Despite the ongoing efforts of many creative practitioners of skill in the art, this problem has remained unsolved until now.